By Stephen Appezzato
TRENTON – Last week, a law was signed to provide options for school funding restoration for 140 districts eying severe cuts across the state, including those in the Two River area.
The news comes just months after the state Department of Education (DOE) released its 2024-25 state aid summary, which revealed the Red Bank Borough School District would face a 19.6% funding cut totaling a loss of $1.7 million. The Long Branch and Asbury Park school districts eyed $10.4 million and $4.1 million losses, respectively.
After the Legislature approved the aid restoration bill, state Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-16), who cosponsored it with Sen. Vin Gopal (D-11), described the matter as a “stop gap” to prevent aid cuts as legislators “work to find a stable long-term school funding solution.” Gopal echoed this, describing the bill as a cushion as the state continues to transition to the S-2 school funding formula.
In a previous interview with Gopal, chair of the Senate Education Committee, he said legislators would focus on reevaluating the formula this summer to prevent similar funding swings in the future. One issue that became apparent this year is how the formula calculates the “local share” of a district’s funding based on changes in property value. With real estate booming in Red Bank and Long Branch, this produced significant changes year-over-year in their state funding.
The aid relief legislation, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy May 14, allows the DOE to establish a grant program, funded with $44.7 million, for districts facing funding cuts. If a grant is approved, a district can recoup up to 45% of its cut state aid. To make up the remaining losses, a new law will allow schools that experienced a reduction in state aid in the 2024-25 school year compared to the 2020-2021 school year to adjust their tax levy above the 2% cap. The adjustment may only be used once to recoup the difference between a district’s 2020-2021 and 2024-2025 state aid. However, no matter the loss, districts cannot increase their levy above 9.9%, and each case must be approved by the state education commissioner.
Many districts across the state were blindsided by their state aid cuts and had little time to submit new 2024-25 school year budgets accounting for projected losses. With the new aid restoration laws, the deadline for these districts to submit budgets to their executive county superintendent was pushed back to July. Similarly, the deadline to renew or let go nontenured teaching staff members was moved to July 22.
Despite Red Bank Public School’s initial funding losses, most Two River area school districts will receive increases in state funding next year. The Colts Neck School District will receive a 98% increase (an outlier), while Oceanport will have a 10.03% increase, Red Bank Regional a 13.54% increase and Fair Haven a 12.10% increase.
The article originally appeared in the May 23 – May 29, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
